


now you're a dull ache, you're goosebumps, this is all there is

by slytherns



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, enter beth's mind while she shoots the guy she has feeling for, i guess, idk what this is, im sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 09:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19002727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherns/pseuds/slytherns
Summary: She knows it is not a rational thought – but everything she has lost; her kids, her tranquillity, the gentle solace of a worn-out marriage she refused to free herself from, her safety: everything she used to hold dear does not even compare to the rush of adrenaline each encounter with him gives her. And for that, she hates him. She hates everything he represents.She hates it.





	now you're a dull ache, you're goosebumps, this is all there is

**Author's Note:**

> ok so i seriously don't know what this is, i just wanted to write a little something after watching the episode. that said, if anyone is interested in a longer version / a follow-up, i'd love to write it !! i do have some ideas about what could happen next season, and idk, i might make a fanfic out of it. 
> 
> anyway, i hope you'll like it !!

The gun in her hand is too heavy; she should let it down, let it fall, give it back to him, force him to take it back, say _no, no, I don’t want to do it. Take it back, I don’t want it, I don’t want it._ But words get stuck in her mouth, like an old lullaby she can’t remember with precision, the slow lament on the border of her lips, or somewhere behind the cage of her teeth, song hidden under her tongue. Words don’t get out; but eyes lift, from his hand to his torso to his neck to his face, lips and eyes and nose and everything, him, _him, him_ , a spectre of the worst memory she possesses, one she can retrace with her eyes closed, everything she hates _(everything she loves)_ in that body, in that face. She knows it is not a rational thought – but everything she has lost; her kids, her tranquillity, the gentle solace of a worn-out marriage she refused to free herself from, her safety: everything she used to hold dear does not even compare to the rush of adrenaline each encounter with him gives her. And for that, she hates him. She hates everything he represents.  
_She hates it._

The gun is heavy, heavier now that the thoughts keep adding on to the weight. It is easy to continue this train of thought, to go from loss to hate to violence, to change direction, from one culprit to another, the federal agent, obsessed with her, to the gang member, obsessed with her. Her heart points to one direction, and her hand follows, and it is easy, it is so easy she can see confusion in his eyes; even him didn’t realize how easy it would be – lips down in anger, lips she has traced with her own, with her tongue, with her teeth. _It is so easy._ So easy. He steps forward and she makes him step back, with a bullet he did not see coming, his own bullet, his own gun, and her, in love, she can see it now, in the way her heart breaks, in the way she fires again and again, three times, the pain slowly spreading in her chest. Throwing up is not an option, but disgust swells up in her throat all the same.  
_(She loves him, she loves him, she's killing him)_

Slow protest of the body now that the mind has done its terrible deed; she can see herself moving forward – not towards his body, which is what she wants to hold most, but towards the one she saved, a bitter consolation prize: _Go! Go!_ The order escapes his mouth with urgency, and maybe she imagines it, but the tone is victorious, it is Rome finally free from Caesar, and she feels too much like Brutus, too alone to be heard, too dangerous to be anything but a wild beast, needing to be put down. _Stop it, stop it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it._ The slow protest has died on her lips now that he won’t hear it, blood rushing, keeping out sounds and voices and pleas. But she would continue to protest, if she could, if she was not terrified, if she had not made the wrong choice already: _don’t let me do that to you._

One second earlier, it had felt right, and sharp, and angry, and had seemed to be the perfect, radical solution to an awful dilemma. But now that she escapes his apartment by the front door for the second and last time of her life, it doesn’t feel like anything anymore. Is that death? An agony like no other, his slow breathing evening out in; harsh protest mumbled through bloodied teeth; she can hear it on her way to her house, can see it playing out: heart beats slowing down, unfocused eyes. She has never seen a real dead body but she can imagine it, she does, his body, his beautiful body that she ruined, and she wonders, wonders again if the marks that she had traced with her fingers, nails against scarred skin, that precious early afternoon, did they hurt as much as these ones do ?

And when the scaring answer crosses the mind; she knows she wants it to hurt. What a truly terrifying thought indeed. Loneliness is a terrible thing, would make monsters of them all, if they let it. They did. _She_ did. She thought she could do it by herself; and in that one sad second where she thought she would be enough by herself, she decided to fire the bullet that would unravel her world, all because she was confident that she could do it without him. She hurts thinking about it, and she wants him to hurt with her, so that she is no longer alone, no longer lonely. _One’s the loneliest number, after all._


End file.
